Even more mail poured in after the "Follow-Up," sustaining such a high level of discourse I have been forced to break out the ol' philosophy books to keep up. The most important points, some made by several readers:
1. I totally blew it by saying Tony LaRussa never played ball -- he did, in fact. I believe, as some of you suggested, I was thinking of Buck Showalter. My apologies.
2. Interestingly, as loyal FJM reader Peter pointed out, so did Branch Rickey, who had a little MLB experience with the Browns and Yankees. See how much you learn about baseball when you try?
3. In the last section of the post, during my gedanken experiment, I casually lump Billy Beane in with the non-playing-the-game folks -- I hope this was not too confusing. I was cheating a little there, trying to cut away Beane's playing experience Occam-style to get at the essence of his baseball knowledge, and thus placing him on Team Knowledge. Pardon the rhetorical device.
3.5. Aren't these philosophy terms fun? How many can you spot?
4. Finally, I simply can't resist. One last (wonderful) hypothetical for Joe to ponder, from reader Brian (slightly altered by yours truly):
You're on a major league team, and your name is announced as a pinch-hitter. Before the first pitch, the pitcher steps off and appeals that your baserunner left early on a sac fly -- they win, and the game ends. You then get credit for appearing in that game although you did not actually play. Suppose you get sent to the minors the next day never to return, but you "appeared" in one major league game...would you thus be qualified to teach Joe about the game?
P.S. Categorical Imperative.
P.P.S. Socrates.
Labels: joe morgan
